


Temper, Temper

by keyboardclicks



Category: Layton Brothers: Mystery Room
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Ficlet, Hostage Situations, Occupational Hazards, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4591770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyboardclicks/pseuds/keyboardclicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Personally, I prefer less physical ways to break people."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temper, Temper

       Lit by a single lightbulb that swayed from its wire on the ceiling, with a concrete floor, a single, tiny window, and with furniture quite obviously pulled from junk piles, Lucy thought that the room she found herself in could have been ripped directly from some cheap horror film.  She wiped her hands on her pants, trying to clean them of the dirt from the floor, and stood up on legs with shaky knees.  Not ten feet in front of her was Alfendi, his back to her and his eyes locked with those of the man who had brought them to the dinky little shack with the swaying light.    
       He was a criminal named Evan Days, responsible for at least two and maybe up to five counts of murder if the evidence they had was complete.  Prof had figured him out easily, weeding out what was as good as a confession from the young man in no more than half an hour.  
       But he had run.  Lucy knew they should have stopped for backup but once Potty had his sights on the guy there was no stopping him so Lucy had climbed into the car and gone along for the chase.  (She had, however, radioed for backup while the Prof drove, but it had yet to arrive.)  
       He lead them straight to the building, off some winding little path and so deep into the forest that Lucy questioned how it had any sort of electrical wiring.  They went in, each with a gun drawn… but then she’d gotten careless.  
       Days was hiding in the wardrobe tucked into the darkest corner of the room.  Lucy had barely even noticed it before he jumped out and took her gun, one arm wrapped around her waist while he held the pistol to her head.  She hadn’t even had time to yell.  
        It was Placid who came to her rescue, approaching Days slowly and calmly, setting his gun down on the floor as he was asked to and approaching with his hands up.  
       “Just let Lucy go,” he’d said, taking one cautious step after another.  “You don’t need to add to your body count.  Just put the gun down.”  
       Days’ hand was shaking but his grip on Lucy was strong.  She stood still, not wanting to startle her captor in case he had poor control of his trigger finger.  As Placid approach the grip on her tightened slightly, and Lucy knew she had to do something to help herself out of there.  So when she no longer felt the gun’s barrel being pressed against her head, she took her chance.  
       Her heel slammed down hard against Day’s toes and her elbow dug into his gut.  At the same time the Prof grabbed Lucy by her jacket and threw her roughly away from her captor.  Amongst the commotion there was a gunshot, but when she looked Lucy saw that Days’ hand was pinned to the wall, gun pointing upwards and a bullet hole in the shack’s roof.  
        Days himself was also pinned to the wall.  
       By his neck.  
       Which the Prof had a very tight grip on.  
       And so was the current situation.  
       “Your first mistake,” said Potty Prof, “was running and leading us all the way out here where it’s just the three of us.  Really, you thought you could take us on all by yourself?  How pathetic.”    
       He sounded so calm it was eerie, especially for someone with their hand wrapped around a man’s neck.  Lucy took a careful step towards Alfendi.  
       “Prof,” she said, “that’s enough.  I’m safe now; let’m down.”  
       “Your second mistake,” Potty continued, “was trying to use Lucy as a captive.  As you saw she’s more than capable of taking care of herself.  Add me into the mix and you really stood no chance in the first place.  Really, you shouldn’t have run; it was a bad choice.”  
       There was a clatter as the pistol Days had taken dropped from his hand and he struggled, trying to get Alfendi’s grip to loosen from around his neck.  His eyes were wide, darting around the room before settling on Lucy as if pleading for her help.  While she found this ironic, she knew she really was this man’s only chance to survive.  After all, she wanted to see him in jail, not dead.  
       “ _Prof_ ,” she repeated, tone firmer this time as she approached him.  “C’mon, let’m _go_.  We’ve won, we can take him back to The Yard now.”  
       But Alfendi continued to ignore her.  
       “Your final mistake,” he said, and Lucy could see his grip tighten, “was assuming that I needed that gun.  Really, you would have been safer if I had it in my hand.  Perhaps I would have shot you, but I doubt it would have been fatal.  Like this, though, I can do much worse.”  
       At this point Lucy was starting to become frightened; sure Potty Prof had a violent temper but she’d never seen him go this far.  
       “Prof _please_ , let him go.”  
       "Up close I can see how afraid you are… and I like it.  You thought it was fun to toy with people’s lives; you thought it was a game.  That’s what ended up being your downfall; you wanted to be searched for but you didn’t know what you’d do once you got caught.  Well, this is where you learn the consequences of your actions.”  
       Days’ tried to pull the hand away from his throat but it did next to nothing; Alfendi was stronger than one might think by looking at him.  
       “You can’t just play with people’s lives, much less the life of my assistant, and expect to get off with just a warning.”  
       “Prof-”  
       “But don’t worry; I’m not going to kill you.”  
       “ _Potty Prof_ -”  
       “In fact, I wasn’t planning to from the start.”  
       “ _Potty, just let him go-_ ”  
       “After all… I know much less physical ways to break people.  And I must say that I prefer them.”  
       Lucy stopped dead.  
       She knew those words.  
    __**“Personally, I believe in less physical ways to break people.”**  
       That was something the Prof had said to her in conversation once, during the discussion of a case.  In fact, it had been the case in which she’d first met Potty Prof… however it had been Placid who told her that.  She realised then that she had been mistaken; the Prof holding Days to the wall by his neck, the one saying such threatening things with such a calm voice… that wasn’t Potty Prof.  
       That was Placid.  
       Lucy closed the remaining gap between herself and Placid, reaching and putting a hand on his shoulder to try and tug him away.  
       “Placid!  Let him go.  It’s _over_!”  
       She felt him twitch under her grip, as if surprised she was there; perhaps he’d forgotten or tuned her out.  He looked over his shoulder and back at her, then suddenly he held his face in the hand that wasn’t keeping Days in a near-death grip.  When he looked up again, Lucy knew she was talking to Potty.  
       “What..?”  
       He looked confused, then noticed what he was doing and pulled his hand from Days’ throat as if it were a hot stove.  The man fell to his hands and knees on the concrete, gasping for air.  Ignoring the Prof for the time being Lucy rushed over to him, pulling the handcuffs from her belt and pulling Days’ hands behind his back.  As she began to recite him his right to silence she looked up at Potty, who was staring mutely, hand still held close to his chest.  She smiled a bit at him, trying to break the tension, and stood up, pulling Days with her.  
       “Let’s get him back to The Yard.”  
        Potty drove, still silent.  They turned Days over and the case was closed, no longer their concern; he was left for lawyers and for the courts.  When asked about the purple bruise beginning to form around his neck, Lucy told them that the Prof had gone a bit overboard.  The Prof himself, still Potty, avoided their gazes almost sheepishly.  
       When they returned to the Mystery Room he’d still barely spoken.  It kind of freaked Lucy out; she wasn’t used to the Prof being so quiet.  
       “Bully for us, eh Prof?” she tried to break the silence, grinning and sitting herself up on the desk.  “How about we celebrate?  I’ll order us something to eat.”  She picked the phone’s receiver up from the desk and began dialing the number of their favorite pizza joint.  As she was just starting to say, “I’d like to place an order for delivery,” however, Alfendi took the receiver from her hand and hung up.  
       “Prof!”  Lucy crossed her arms, a pout forming on her lips.  “Why’d you do that?  Aren’t you hungry?”  
       Potty just stared at her for a moment, then ran a hand through his hair and slouched - back to Placid - rocking back and forth on his feet.  He looked around almost nervously, chewing at the corner of his lip.  Just as Lucy was about to ask if he was alright, Placid took her arm and pulled her from her seat on the desk, hugging her close to him and resting his chin on her head.  
       “...I’m sorry,” he said, and Lucy put her arms around him in return.  “When he had you I just… I got so angry…  I was scared he’d hurt you.  I'm not even sure what I wanted to do to him I was just so _angry_...  I wanted to scare him.”  
       “Prof…”  So that’s what it had been about... she’d never seen Placid become so threatening; he had always been the mild, demure one, and to hear him threatening Days so calmly had sent a chill up her spine.  It reminded her that, though Potty was the temperamental and volatile one, Placid was no less dangerous.  
       Neither of them, though, would ever kill anybody.  That much Lucy was sure of, that much she had taken great lengths to prove.  No matter the case, Alfendi Layton was not a murderer.  
       “Don’t worry about it, Prof,” she grinned, head resting against his chest.  “It’s over, innit?  Case closed.”  
       “...”  He sighed, but did seem to relax.  “Yes… you’re right, it’s over now.”    
       “Just promise me you won’t do it again, alright?  Won’t look too good if you keep roughing up the culprits.”  
       “Hehe… no, that it won’t.  Especially after we just cleared my name of murder.”  He chuckled.  “Don’t worry, I promise.”  
       Lucy felt him kiss the top of her head and she couldn’t help but giggle, pulling away from the hug to take his face into both her hands and kiss him in return.  When she pulled away she saw not Placid’s gentle smile, but Potty’s amused smirk.  
       "If you weren’t saving me all the time, I’d swear you were going to be the death of me, Baker."  
       “We’re partners, aren’t we?  It’s my job to get you out of tight spots.”  She kissed his nose, grinning.  “Now, can I get back to ordering that pizza?  If you aren’t hungry I’ll just order one for myself and eat the whole thing.”


End file.
